Wolfenstein: The New Order

Wolfenstein: The New Order takes place in an alternate Europe that fell to the Nazis during World War II. At the game's onset, however, the year is 1946 and the Nazis have just managed to turn the tide of the war through advanced technology. An American special-forces soldier, Captain Blazkowicz (commonly called B.J.) and two other soldiers are storming a Nazi laboratory when they encounter General "Deathshead" Strasse, a brutal psychopath who enjoys experimenting on humans. B.J. manages to escape, but suffers a brain injury that leaves him in a coma until 1960.

When B.J. wakes up, he finds that the psychiatric asylum he had been recovering in is under attack by Nazi forces. B.J. and a nurse, Anya, are the only survivors, and they flee to Anya's grandparent's farm once the Nazis are dispatched. While at the farm, B.J. learns that there is a resistance against the Nazis headquartered in Berlin called the Kreisau Circle. Wishing to join up with them, B.J. and Anya are smuggled out of Poland with her grandparent's help. B.J. then embarks on a series of efforts and operations to put a stop to Deathshead once and for all.

Representation Wolfenstein: The New Order is surprisingly inclusive. Several strong, though perhaps morally ambiguous, female characters are present and play important roles, such as resistance leader Caroline Becker. The game also includes a character with a mental disability and does a decent job of portraying him sympathetically and as a fully realized character. Furthermore, the game addresses the terrible nature of discrimination in dialogue.

The game autosaves fairly often throughout.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is meant to be more difficult than its predecessor. The medium difficulty is supposed to offer a challenge to all players, even those with first-person shooter experience. That being said, there are five different difficulty levels in total, so the challenge can be scaled back (or forward) quite a bit.

• What do you think of the game's alternate history? Is it at all plausible, or simply for entertainment purposes?
• Does playing as Blazkowicz make you feel invincible? Does this feeling affect the decisions you make?
• What do you think of the way Wolfenstein: The New Order portrays Nazism?